lo SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



shades of reddish-brown, deep-brown, or blackish in those enclosed in 

 dense cocoons or buried in the earth. The immense majority of butter- 

 fly chrysalides are included in the former class, and some of them 

 (Nym^halidce) exhibit the brilliant golden spots or patches which gave 

 origin to the name of chrysalis or aurelia. But much of the colouring 

 of these exposed pupae is protective, closely resembling that of the 

 objects to which they may be attached ; and, as has of late been 

 discovered, the general tint of different individuals of the same brood 

 will, in some kinds, be found to vary (within certain limits) in accord- 

 ance with the colour of tha objects upon which they assume the pupal 

 state.'^ Besides this, there are instances where the form as well as the 

 colouring aids in the protective resemblance, as Mr. Mansel Weale and 

 I have shown in the case of the South- African Papilio Cenea ; and the 

 hirsute chrysalis of D'Ur'hania amalwsa, already mentioned, appears 

 from Mrs. Barber's observations to resemble certain lichens growing 

 on the rocks to which it is attached. 



The motions of lepidopterous pupas are very limited, and those of 

 butterflies, whose caudal extremity is fixed to a silken attachment, are 

 all but motionless. The abdominal segments have, however, consider- 

 able freedom of movement in many moths, and such pup^, by the aid 

 of a strong caudal spine {mucro) — and, in some cases, of a series of 

 small dorsal spines on the other segments — are able to push themselves 

 along, either in the ground or in the hollowed interior of the stems of 

 plants. Many display this particular sort of activity when the perfect 

 insect is about ready to emerge. 



The structural changes wrought during the chrysalis state of 

 quiescence are astonishingly great. The body becomes distinctly 

 divided into the three heteronomous portions of head, thorax, and 

 abdomen, and covered with scales ; ample wings are developed, also 

 covered with scales ; the pro-legs disappear, and the true legs as well 

 as the antennae are much lengthened and completely altered in shape. 

 The eyes are enormously enlarged and developed ; and while the 

 united maxillte and labium are separated and profoundly modified into 

 the long spiral sucking-tube (Iiaustellum) and the under-lip bearing 

 well-developed palpi, the large jaws {mandibles) are reduced to the 

 merest rudiments. Not less profound are the accompanying internal 

 changes, for the thoracic nervous ganglia become approximated and 

 united into two masses, while the two basal pairs of the abdominal 

 segments are aborted ; the alimentary canal is differentiated into well- 

 defined tracts of oesophagus, crop, stomach, &c. ; the silk-glands entirely 

 disappear ; the great fat-body (corpus adiposuiii) is almost wholly 

 absorbed ; and the reproductive organs are fully developed. 



^ One of the most remarkable cases of this kind is that of the pupae of the well-known 

 South-African Papilio Nireus, recorded by Mrs. Barber in the Transactions of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London for 1874, pp. 519-521. The same observer informs me that the 

 pupae of Callidryas Florella present quite a parallel case. 



